I’ve been playing Final Fantasy VII in Japanese and English at the same time. I’m making videos documenting the little differences I notice between the Japanese and English scripts. This is the latest part of my series!

In today’s episode, we’re going to visit the Gold Saucer, where we’ll encounter a line of dialogue which, I believe, points to the translator not knowing that Aeris was going to die later in the game. Then we’ll experience a visit from some ghosts of Barret’s past. We’ll learn why one of Barret’s arms is a gun. The reason is generally the same in English as it is in Japanese, though some of the details are curiously, deliciously different. If you’ve watched any of these videos so far, you know that I am always curious about deliciously different details. If you haven’t watched any of these videos yet, well, you can find them all in this convenient playlist.

02:59 We meet Dio, the owner of the Gold Saucer. He suggests a nickname for himself.

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05:12 We stop by the Ghost Hotel. I tell a ghost story.

07:22 We meet Cait Sith. I talk about Indiana University. We encounter a line of dialogue whose translation indicates the translator might not have known Aeris dies later in the game.

12:14 We are sentenced to Corel Prison, an outdoor prison in the hated desert. Barret tells us about how he got his gun arm. In English he says he got replaced an “artificial arm” with a gun. In Japanese he makes no mention whatsoever of an artificial arm. I investigate why it might have been translated that way.